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Lesson plan Grade 3 Social Studies & Civics

Sharing One Well in Saltgrass Flat: A Grade 3 Civics Lesson

Students help the fictional town of Saltgrass Flat turn a low-well summer into a fair sharing plan, then check the plan with two-step bucket problems.

Objectives

  1. Students will explain how a town develops a rule to solve a shared water problem.
  2. Students will use multiplication, division, and subtraction to check whether a water-sharing plan fits a well's daily supply.

Vocabulary

Key words: well, council, rule, supply

Teacher overview

Saltgrass Flat is a fictional dry-country town where every family draws water from one shared town well. When the well runs low in summer, the town council has to decide how to share what is left, which makes this a concrete first look at how a community turns a shared problem into a written rule. A common misconception this lesson addresses directly is that a water rule punishes people, so the handout math shows instead how an equal daily share divides a short supply and leaves every family with water. Students practice the arithmetic that checks whether the plan fits what the well can give.

Procedure

Hook (5 min): Draw a well on the board and write "One well. Twenty-eight families." Ask students what could go wrong in a summer with no rain, and collect two or three ideas without judging them.

Story and problem (10 min): Tell the story of Saltgrass Flat. The town of Saltgrass Flat sits in dry country, and its families share one deep well. Most of the year the well gives plenty. This summer the well is low. Some families near the well filled many buckets early each morning, and families who came later some days found the trough nearly empty. Neighbors began to argue. Ask: is this one family's problem or the whole town's problem? Establish that a problem everyone shares needs an answer everyone agrees to.

Options and class decision (15 min): Explain that the Saltgrass Flat council met and heard three ideas: first come, first served; let each family take whatever it pays for; or give every family the same daily share. On chart paper, list each option and have students name one thing that is fair and one thing that is unfair about it. Then reveal the council's choice: every family gets an equal daily share, posted on a sign at the well, with a helper who checks the count each morning. Name this a rule the town made together, and note that councils write rules like this when a shared resource runs short.

Handout practice (10 min): Students complete handout questions 1 through 4 in pairs. Circulate and watch for students who multiply correctly but forget the second step.

Closure and exit ticket (5 min): Students complete handout question 5 alone on a slip of paper and hand it in at the door. Check for the correct product before dismissal; if more than a third of the class misses it, reteach the multiplication step tomorrow.

Sharing One Well in Saltgrass Flat: A Grade 3 Civics Lesson — Grade 3 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Handout

The town of Saltgrass Flat shares one well. Use the story numbers to answer each question. Show your work.

  1. Four families live on Mesquite Lane. In summer, each of these families uses 6 buckets of water a day. How many buckets do the four families use together in one day?
  2. In summer, the Saltgrass Flat well can give 30 buckets a day to Mesquite Lane. The four families use 24 buckets a day. How many buckets are left over each day?
  3. In the driest month, the well can give Mesquite Lane only 20 buckets a day. The council's rule says the four families split those buckets equally. How many buckets does each family get?
  4. Under the driest-month rule, one family gets 5 buckets a day and uses 3 of them for cooking and washing. The rest go to the garden. How many garden buckets does that family have after 7 days?
  5. The nearby town of Dune Spring has 9 families, and its spring gives each family 3 buckets a day. How many buckets do the 9 families get in all each day?

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: 24 buckets. Four families times 6 buckets each is 4 × 6 = 24 buckets a day.
  2. Answer: 6 buckets. The well gives 30 buckets and the families use 24, so 30 − 24 = 6 buckets are left over.
  3. Answer: 5 buckets. Twenty buckets split equally among 4 families is 20 ÷ 4 = 5 buckets for each family.
  4. Answer: 14 buckets. Each day the family has 5 − 3 = 2 buckets for the garden, and over 7 days that is 2 × 7 = 14 buckets.
  5. Answer: 27 buckets. Nine families times 3 buckets each is 9 × 3 = 27 buckets a day.

Differentiation

Support

Give students a drawn strip of 30 bucket icons for questions 1 and 2 so they can circle groups of six and count what remains. For question 4, have them solve the two steps on separate lines with the sentence frames "Each day: ___" and "After 7 days: ___."

Extension

Ask students to write a fourth option the council could have chosen, then test it with the driest-month numbers from question 3 and explain in two sentences whether their option would leave any family short.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "well," "bucket," "council," and "share" with quick sketches next to each word. During the options discussion, let students show fair and unfair with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down before putting reasons into words, and provide the frame "This is fair because ___."

Extensions

Invite students to design the sign the town posts at the well. The sign must state the daily share from question 3, use words a young child could follow, and give one reason the rule exists. Post the signs beside the chart-paper options so the class can compare the rule to the ideas the council turned down.